The Office - E TV Reviewer

eTV Reviewer

E-mail Subscription

Receive an e-mail notification of new posts on this site:

Vimu Subscription

eTV Reviewer Forums

Lost Forum (0)

The Office: "Initiation"

October 20th 2006 19:58

The Office: “Initiation”

Dwight Schrute has to be the oddest television character ever created. I’m a

Rainn Wilson Dwight Schrute The Office NBC

The wierdest man ever.

fan of the British version of The Office also, but in my opinion Gareth doesn’t hold a candle to Dwight. He’s just so crazy and over-the-top. The more screen time Dwight gets, the more I laugh.

This episode was Dwight’s time to shine as he was taking Ryan (The Temp) on his first “sales call.” Dwight relishes being in control, trying to force is ridiculous ways on someone else. You could just tell by the title of this episode that none of this was going to turn out well for Ryan.

Look at what Mose carved for you.

Dwight takes him to the Schrute Family Beet Farm to “pass some tests.” First Dwight makes Ryan kneel down in the field, which is covered in manure to plant a beet seed.

Dwight: “As you plant this seed in the ground, I shall also plant my seed in you.”

Yeah that quote made me cringe too, but it was just as hilarious as it was cringe-worthy.

Meanwhile, Jan is getting extremely fed up with Michael and how he does absolutely nothing. Every episode I watch I keep trying to understand how Michael actually got to where he is. Who would’ve ever promoted that guy?

Michael did a lot today!

Jan assigns Pam to keep track of Michael hour by hour—she ends up writing only two things down neither containing any mention of work.

Stanley and Michael

Today is pretzel day, where the building gives its tenants free pretzels. It seems that Stanley lives for Pretzel Day. But, if I worked at that place, it would seem that would be the only thing to live for also.

Over at Stamford it seems Jim and Karen are getting very flirtatious. Which I

Ed Helms as Andy

don’t mind that much. It doesn’t really add all that much to the show, but doesn’t really take away either. But, one of the best additions to the show is Ed Helms (The Daily Show) as Andy, the rage-a-holic office worker.

The Face of Fear

Back at the beet farm Dwight drives off and leaves Ryan stranded in the middle of the field. Ryan walks all the way to an old rundown barn. Inside is Dwight, an old wheelchair and a creepy coffin in the corner. He sits Ryan down in the old wheelchair, and begins quizzing him. I love when Dwight throws in Lost references. Remember in the second season where they went down to the warehouse and Dwight turns to the camera and says, “Remember on Lost where they met The Others?” Well, he’s quizzing Ryan in the chair and he says, “What’s the Dharma Initiative?” I about lost it. That was hilarious.

Lets get ready to rumble

Dwight gives Ryan a speech about fear and vanquishing his fears. Then Dwight’s weird Amish-looking cousin named Mose (I have no idea how he’d spell it), jumps out, FEAR in duct tape letters across the front of his shirt ready to fight. Ryan finally gets up tells Dwight he’s a freak and leaves. Before Ryan leaves Dwight asks him, “Ok you don’t have to wrestle, just get in the coffin.”

The creepy coffin

There was a call at the end of the episode with Jim calling and talking to Pam. It was cute for a little bit, but it went on too long. They should’ve cut that shorter. We all know what those awkward conversations are like.

This wasn’t as good as last week’s episode. I believe last week’s was one of the funniest there has been. But, this was another great one. I really am amazed at the quality of each episode. The writers really must spend a lot of time on these scripts. Seinfeld and Arrested Development were the only shows I can think of that were consistently funny ALL the time.

**All images screencaps courtesy of yours truly, (Aaron if you didn't know)**

Vote

Comments (9)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Aaron - Category: The Office

Email this Post to a Friend

The Office: "Grief Counseling"

October 13th 2006 18:22

The Office
“Grief Counseling “

There are some days in a person’s life that they will always remember,

especially the good ones. Like getting married, having kids, and buying your first house. For a TV addict it’s sort of a different story. For us it’s those days where we discover a new show so breathtaking, so extraordinarily different, so ingenuously creative we jump off our couch and do a jig around the room knowing we have discovered a classic.

I had one of these days two summers ago. I was sitting in my basement channel surfing when I came by MSNBC, but it wasn’t playing news. Steve Carell was sticking sticky notes to people’s foreheads with different races written on them. MSNBC was running a marathon of the first season of a new show called ‘The Office.’ To use an old cliché, ‘The Office’ truly is the funniest show on television right now. Not only is it funny, it’s CONSISTENTLY HILARIOUS.

Now that you know a little background of how ‘The Office’ and I came to be, lets have a little chat about last night’s episode.

I love the opening scenes to every episode, they set the tone. Michael is stacking up boxes and then does that age old trick of pretending to walk downstairs. Like usual Dwight thinks it’s the funniest thing he’s ever seen and Michael thinks he’s making everyone laugh when inside they’re really cringing for him, knowing for a fact that he has NO idea how much he’s embarrassing himself. Something that makes this show great is the sheer awkwardness of human contact. The awkward pauses, sometimes even make me cringe, but that’s the crux of the show.

Soon Michael finds out that his old boss Ed Truck is dead. If you remember from the second season Michael hated Ed Truck because “he didn’t know how to have fun.” But, now Michael is acting like he cares, why? Well, because he’s worried that if he dies will anyone care about him. The title of the episode is “Grief Counseling.” Which is quite ironic because the entire episode Michael does nothing but spread grief around.

He is determined to make everyone feel bad for what has happened to his fallen comrade who he learns, from Creed (the office weirdo) that Ed Truck was actually stinking drunk and drove his car under a semi dislodging his head from the rest of his body.

The best part of the episode came when Michael gathered everyone together to confront the grief in their lives. He gets a ball to pass around and whoever has the ball, gets to tell a story of a person close to them that has passed on. The ball gets passed to Pam who tells the story of “Million Dollar Baby.” Then passed to Ryan-the-Temp who tells the story of Mufasa in the “Lion King.” Then it ends up with Kevin telling everyone about his Uncle Bernie and how he died during the weekend and they had to pretend he was still alive. That was classic!

The crowning moment of this episode though was Dwight explaining to everyone that when his Mom was pregnant with him they told her she was going to have twins. But, later she went back and the other one was gone.
Dwight: “I absorbed the other fetus. Now I feel that I have the strength of a grown man and a small baby.”

Other great quotes:

Michael: WHAM! His capa is detated from his head!
Michael: I lost Ed Truck. And it feels like somebody took my heart, and dropped it into a bucket of boiling tears. And, at the same time, somebody else is hitting my soul in the crotch with a frozen sledgehammer. And then, a third guy walks in and starts punching me in the grief bone. And I’m crying, and nobody can hear me. Because I am terribly, terribly, terribly alone.
Michael: There are five stages to grief, which are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. And right now, out there, they’re all denying the fact that they’re sad. And that’s … hard. And it’s making them all angry. And it is my job to try to get them all the way through to acceptance. And if not acceptance, then just depression. If I can get them depressed, then I’ll have done my job.